Estimate
€ 100.000 - 150.000
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Current bid Starting bid
€ 95.000
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At auction on Wednesday 28 May 2025 at 16:00
Information
oil on canvas
cm 130 x 192
We are grateful to John T. Spike for the confirmation of the attribution to Mattia Preti, after having seen the work in person, and for this essay.
Mattia Preti (Taverna 1613 - 1699 Malta), was one of the a major protagonists in 17th-century Italian painting. Preti was born in 1613 to a respected family in Taverna, a small but ancient village in the mountains of Calabria, where the young Preti received an excellent education in the Greek and Latin classics. Before he was twenty, Preti left his hometown for Rome, where he joined his older brother, Gregorio Preti, in 1632. Although Preti is often associated with Neapolitan Baroque painting, he trained and gained his first recognition in Rome as the last important follower of the rebellious Michelangelo Merisi called Caravaggio (1571-1610). Preti was immediately attracted to Caravaggio's dark, dramatic compositions and also to his French followers, such as Valentin de Boulogne.
cm 130 x 192
We are grateful to John T. Spike for the confirmation of the attribution to Mattia Preti, after having seen the work in person, and for this essay.
This previously unpublished painting by Mattia Preti is an important rediscovery, that is distinguished for its original and profound interpretation of the theme known by the Latin words, "Noli me tangere" [Do not touch me]. The subject is taken from the Gospel of St. John (20:13-18), which describes the events of Easter morning, when Mary Magdalene went alone to the tomb of Jesus. Not finding the body of Christ, Mary Magdalene began to cry, saying, "They have taken my Lord away, and I do not know where they have laid him." At that moment, she turned and saw Jesus standing before her, but she did not recognize him. Instead, she thought he was the gardener of that place. Jesus then revealed himself, saying her name. Immediately Mary turned to embrace him, but Jesus said to her, "Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; go to my brothers and tell them."
The vigorous depiction of the miraculous encounter of the Magdalen with the risen Christ in the Garden of the Sepulchre is an excellent example of Preti's energetic style of the mid-1670s. The artist has devoted exceptional effort to the creation of a visionary and passionate image of that sacred story, evidently executed for an important patron. The depiction of the risen Christ as a young man is unique among Preti's other works on this subject, but it has a notable precedent to confirm its date. Earlier in the same decade, Preti had similarly portrayed St John the Baptist as an attractive young man with a penetrating gaze in a celebrated painting in the National Museum of Fine Arts, Malta.
A decade later, in the 1680s, Preti and his assistants painted a larger, simpler and less animated version of this Noli me tangere in a series of four New Testament scenes now on view in the Quadreria del Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples.Mattia Preti (Taverna 1613 - 1699 Malta), was one of the a major protagonists in 17th-century Italian painting. Preti was born in 1613 to a respected family in Taverna, a small but ancient village in the mountains of Calabria, where the young Preti received an excellent education in the Greek and Latin classics. Before he was twenty, Preti left his hometown for Rome, where he joined his older brother, Gregorio Preti, in 1632. Although Preti is often associated with Neapolitan Baroque painting, he trained and gained his first recognition in Rome as the last important follower of the rebellious Michelangelo Merisi called Caravaggio (1571-1610). Preti was immediately attracted to Caravaggio's dark, dramatic compositions and also to his French followers, such as Valentin de Boulogne.
By the end of the decade, Preti’s compelling talent had brought him into the highest circles of Roman society. In November 1641, Pope Urban VIII Barberini offered him a knighthood in the Order of Saint John, which he received the following year. From then on, he was known by his celebrated nickname, Il Cavalier Calabrese. Preti transformed his painting style in the mid-1640s, following trips to Venice to see the grand compositions of Titian and Paolo Veronese, and to Bologna, where he studied the Carracci and the late works of Guercino. These great masters inspired Preti to combine Caravaggio’s expressive light with natural effects of atmosphere and space, as well as an evocative theatricality.
Upon his return to Rome in 1646, Preti's mature style immediately attracted the patronage of Pope Innocent X's Pamphili family and other important collectors. The Jubilee year of 1650 brought Preti to the pinnacle of his Roman career, when he was awarded the prestigious commission to execute the three frescoes of Saint Andrew in the enormous apse of the Basilica of Sant'Andrea della Valle. In response to this commission, Preti added a final component to this mature style, namely the monumentality of Roman Baroque painting, as well as sculpture, particularly that of Bernini. As soon as these frescoes were inaugurated in April 1651, the Duke of Modena commissioned him to travel to Modena to paint the dome, four pendentives, and apse of the church of San Biagio. He painted the frescoes between October 1651 and March 1652.
A year later he left Rome to work in Naples. The frescoes executed in Rome and Modena between 1650 and 1652 occupy a central place in Preti's career as outstanding examples of Roman Baroque painting. The figures possess statuesque qualities that draw on Rome's leading sculptor, Gianlorenzo Bernini. The beautiful saints and angels seem to have an irrepressible energy that Preti used as a metaphor for the strength of their spirituality. The present Noli me tangere is a rare and important example of a canvas painting executed in Malta that displays the same energetic force first learned in Rome.
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